Engineering Library Blog

During its existence, NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ] produced thousands of (technical) reports, many of which still have relevance to today’s researchers and engineers in aeronautics and aerodynamics. While many of the reports are only available in hardcopy, in the last decade or so, a substantial number of the reports - over 14,000 - have been digitised and made available online.

These digitised reports are still available despite the demise of the NACA Reports Server. They can now be accessed from the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp (Princeton University Library also houses a very substantial number of these reports in print or on microfiche.) Resource (below), via docuticker http://www.docuticker.com http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/newsletter0207/page3.html

From Knowledgespeak Newsletter, May 7, 2007: Educational and scientific society Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), US, has announced an expansion of its online resources for continuous learning. The steps include a doubling of online courses and a significant expansion of its current collection of books. ACM offers online educational offerings to over 80,000 students and professionals across the world free of cost. (To ACM members)

The resources now include 2,200 courses from SkillSoft covering a wide range of topics in computing and information technology as well as business management and leadership. They also include 1,100 books on innovative IT and computer science technologies, and the latest books on practical business skills from e-book providers Safari and Books 24x7.

Knovel subscriptions include 60 percent of top universities in the world - 09 May 2007

Web-based information services provider Knovel Corporation, US, recently announced that 60 percent of the 50 top universities in the world, as listed by the Times Higher Education Supplement, are now Knovel subscribers. New subscriptions at UCLA, UC San Diego and Sydney University are projected to give Knovel coverage of 60 percent of the top universities worldwide.

Furthermore, 80 percent of the top 20 US engineering schools*, as ranked by US News and World Reports in 2007, are Knovel subscribers. Subscribers in the top 50 universities worldwide include University of Melbourne, ETH, Zurich, University of Michigan, University of British Columbia, Washington University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and University of California, San Diego.

Knovel is a science and technology reference library used by students, academics, scientists and practitioners globally. It contains over 1,100 reference works and databases from more than 40 international publishers and learned societies which are integrated onto the online research platform for easy information discovery. Its interactive platform brings together essential content and advanced workflow solutions to provide researchers with practical new ways of quickly finding and applying critical data.

• This group includes Princeton University. From Knowledgespeak Newsletter, May 9, 2007

As part of the Wikimedia project, begun in 2003, an Engineering bookshelf has been established. “Books” may be suggested, written, edited and read by anyone. These entries are in various stages of development: GENERAL - Control Systems - Statics — AERONAUTICS - Jet Propulsion — ASTRONAUTICS - Rocket Propulsion — AUTOMOTIVE - Automotive Systems - Electric Vehicle Conversion - Nissan 240SX Performance Modification — CIVIL ENGINEERING - House Construction - Soil mechanics - Structural engineering — MATERIALS SCIENCE - Introduction to Materials Science — MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - Engineering Acoustics - Solid Mechanics - Engineering Thermodynamics - Fluid Mechanics - Heat Transfer - Engineering Mechanics — ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING - Circuit Theory - Communication Systems - Digital Circuits - Digital Signal Processing - Embedded Systems - Signals and Systems — ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING - Circuit Idea - Electronics - Semiconductors — GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING - Geographic Information Systems — MICRO- and NANOTECHNOLOGY - Nanotechnology - Microtechnology

We have access to SPIE Digital Library Online , an extensive resource of information on photonics and optics, which enables access to more than 230,000 technical papers from SPIE Journals and Conference Proceedings from 1990 to the present.

The latest issue of The Bridge, vol. 37, no. 2, Summer, 2007, features several articles on e-voting, including one by Rush Holt: “Legal Issues, Policy Issues, and the Future of Democracy”

Acoustical Society of America Digital Library

http://www.asadl.org/

The ASA Digital Library includes technical articles from journals and magazines published by the Acoustical Society of America since its founding in 1929. Papers are available from the highly cited Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and the other publications in ASA’s collection including JASA Express Letters, Acoustics Research Letters Online, Noise Control, Sound—Its Uses and Control, and Standards on Acoustics. Abstracts of papers presented at meetings of the Society since 1929 are also included. Papers published in JASA Express Letters and Acoustics Research Letters Online as well as abstracts of meeting papers are open-access and may be read and downloaded without subscription.

Source: Issue 152, Internet resources newsletter, from Heriot-Watt University Library, July 2007

TechXtra - TechXtra is a free service which can help you find articles, books, the best websites, the latest industry news, job announcements, technical reports, technical data, full text eprints, the latest research, thesis & dissertations, teaching and learning resources and more, in engineering, mathematics and computing. This engine enables deep mining because of its selective files.

All searches are done in ‘All Fields’. There is a basic search, and advanced search mode which is very user friendly. Some of the databases searched by this resource do not support truncation. Phrase searches are not supported as part of an AND Boolean search. Only last name searches are supported in Author search.

More details and instructions can be found at this URL: http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/index.html?action=about#extras

An important caveat: Do search Princeton’s subscription databases first, because we may have paid access to some of the resources you will find on TechXtra. Many sources are free though, regardless. Also remember that if they are not free, and we don’t have a subscription either, you may always make a request through Document Delivery (Interlibrary Loan or Article Express).

From Knowledgespeak Newsletter:

“NASA ties up with Internet Archive to digitise and manage space imagery - 28 Aug 2007

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced a five-year agreement with nonprofit organisation Internet Archive, US, to scan, archive and manage the Agency’s vast collection of photographs, historic film and video. The imagery will be available through the Internet for free to the public, historians, scholars, students and researchers.”

NASA’s 20 different major imagery collections online will soon be merged into one big file within Internet Archives. The first year, these imagery collections will be added; the second year, digital imagery; and the third year, analog imagery will be analyzed and added.

Internet Archive and NASA will work on software that allows new images to be captured, cataloged, and added automatically to the Archive.

Here is the press release.

From Adriana Popescu, Engineering Librarian:

“We have now access to the MRS Online Proceedings Library: http://www.mrs.org/proceedings_archives/. The online library contains the full text of over 330 proceedings volumes and includes almost 20,000 individual papers presented at MRS Spring and Fall meetings (1998+) which report on fundamental and emerging research areas in materials science.” This “Materials Gateway” is worth a look.

Knovel forms content partnership with Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society - 06 Sep 2007 Source: Knowledgespeak News at www.knowledgespeak.com

“Web-based information services provider Knovel Corporation, US, has announced that it has partnered with the Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society (ISA) to provide new content to subscribers of Knovel’s online technical reference collection.

The addition of ISA’s technical references and handbooks will provide Knovel’s subscribers with valuable information about automation and control systems. Access to these resources via Knovel’s fast and accurate search technology will enable design engineers to quickly tap the right resources to develop complex systems. The agreement is one of several publishing partnerships Knovel has recently entered into to provide the most comprehensive source of technical reference books and databases for focused engineering disciplines.

Knovel’s specialised suite of built-in analytical tools provides researchers with practical new ways to find and apply critical information. In addition to trusted content, engineers rely on Knovel for data extraction, calculations, tabular data analysis and equation solving.”

Princeton has the most complete subscription level to Knovel.

The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), a trusted developer of high-quality technical standards for materials, products, systems and services, will provide access to books and manuals through Knovel. Subscribers wanted to be able to utilize Knovel’s great search functionality for ASTM publications. “Knovel has uniquely optimized content, search and interactive tools for specific engineering disciplines. Knovel’s content includes material properties, process and design information, standard procedures, equations, and formulations.”

“The ASTM titles will enhance Knovel’s coverage of materials and testing for the aerospace, petroleum and energy industries, as well as providing design and construction engineers with the technical information they need to selects, test, analyze and use materials.” (Delores Meglio, VP of Content Mangement at Knovel) Source: Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd (Laura Cox)

Princeton University now has access to the entire ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Online Research Library (http://www.ascelibrary.org/), which includes all ASCE journals and conference proceedings since 1996. This library provides you with unprecedented access to more than 33,000 full-text papers from ASCE journals and conference proceedings published. Approximately 4,000 new papers will be added each year. Searching the full text of an article is apparently not available, though, and there will be a delay before all the additional titles will be listed in the Main Catalog.

Recently Knovel has added the content of these titles, among many others: Wiley’s Water Encyclopedia, Elsevier’s Handbook of Water and Wastewater Treatment Technologies, and McGraw-Hill’s Applied Hydrology.

Today, Knovel has announced (via Knowledgespeak Newletter) that they have an agreement with ISA ( global automation standards) to add their books and technical references for automation and control.

We now have access to the Society of Petroleum Engineers(SPE) eLibrary which is a repository of technical papers presented at SPE-sponsored conferences and in SPE’s technical journals since early 1950s. Access requires Princeton authentication (no walk-ins allowed) and individual user registration. Once an individual account is created, login, then go to the Papers/Publications/Authors section at the top menu and click on eLibrary/Technical Papers to search. You must save papers of interest to cart and complete the check-out process (the cart will show $0.00 at check-out) to download the papers.

From Adriana Popescu, Engineering Librarian, Jan. 30, 2008

Safari 5.8 will have a statistics counter, and “Safari has also enhanced its video content collection. Subscribers will now have access to online videos in Adobe Flash and Windows Media Player as well as QuickTime.”

Princeton University Library has a full subscription to this online e-book service.

Source: EContent magazine, June 16, 2008

“EPSRC launches Digital Repositories e-Science Network - 17 Jun 2008

The UK’s Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has launched the Digital Repositories e-Science Network (DReSNet). The network is expected to leverage the synergy between two fields of technology and technique, e-science and digital repositories.

The digital material generated from and used by academic and other research is to an increasing extent being held in formally managed digital repositories. In many cases, these systems are used currently to hold relatively simple objects like an institution’s pre-prints and publications, or e-theses. However, some institutions are beginning to use them to manage research data.

A major motivation in setting up and populating digital repositories has been to make the results of research available to a wider audience. The latest systems allow users to move away from the model of a standalone repository, where objects are simply deposited for subsequent access and download. Instead, researchers are developing more sophisticated models in which a repository is an integrated component of a larger research infrastructure, incorporating advanced tools and workflows. These are being used to model complex webs of information and capture scholarly or scientific processes in their entirety, from raw data through to final publications. Repositories thus add value to the data-driven research lifecycle.

A particular feature of the new network is that it will operate across disciplines, including the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as the sciences in the narrower sense, as the technologies addressed are trans-disciplinary. Given the range of potential applications of the technologies, interest in DReSNet is not restricted to the academic world, but also includes non-academic institutions. Consequently, industrial participants, including commercial companies, cultural heritage organisations (e.g. museums, art galleries and historic libraries), the media, and public/government bodies will be encouraged to participate.”

Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter, June 17, 2008

“US DoE expands global science gateway - 18 Jun 2008

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information has announced that international science portal WorldWideScience.org has expanded its scope to include connections to databases and scientific web sites from over 44 nations.

WorldWideScience.org allows users to question over 200 million science and technology documents not indexed by popular search engines. The portal linked to 12 databases from 10 countries when it debuted in June 2007. The lately expanded service includes 32 national scientific databases and links to portals from 44 countries.

DOE and the British Library along with eight other participating countries first struck an agreement to establish the portal in January 2007. WorldWideScience.org gives science information consumers a single entry point for searching far-reaching science portals in parallel, with only one query, saving time and effort.”

Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter

Princeton University Library subscribes to all of the AIP Conference Proceedings. They are available online before they are cataloged in our Main Catalog. One can subscribe to the alerts. The latest title, Physics of Sustainable Energy, may be of great interest. Also, one of the papers is by Professor Robert Socolow.

AIP Conference Proceedings Volume 1044

PHYSICS OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY: Using Energy Efficiently and Producing It Renewably

Berkeley (California), 1-2 March 2008 ISBN: 978-0-7354-0572-1

Editor(s): David Hafemeister, California Polytechnic State University B. Levi, Physics Today M. Levine, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory P. Schwartz, California Polytechnic State University